Category Archives: Consulting

There is not an industry more focussed on being green than the Coffeehouse business right now. On the high street its all about green credibility. There is much debate about in store waste and renewable coffee cups, not to mention what to do with the spent beans or “grinds” as they are called in the trade. When the SOLIDEA Group EVE® team were asked to look at how renewable energy might best impact the Coffee business we came up with a few surprises.

Supermarkets and Hypermarkets work on very low profit margins, as low as 3% of sales. Their business model, put simply, is to provide the retail customer the biggest choice and lowest market price all under one roof.

Over the last decade energy costs in retail have doubled and by 2013 the cost of energy for the ill prepared will be more than 2% of sales. The ultimate prize for energy cost saving in this industry is of course free energy generated onsite and from a sustainable and renewable green source. But so far it was either impossible or carried too higher CAPEX and to this day no top brand Zero Net Energy Supermarket or Hypermarket exists. Continue reading →

PowerCan® 200 systems can be used to convert used tires into “Syngas” to produce electricity and heat, the gasification process is without emissions, there is no smoke, no VOC’s and no steam.

John Boyd Dunlop first invented the rubber tire so his son could ride his bike more comfortably in the streets of Belfast in 1887 and it wasn’t until 1898 some forty years after Charles Goodyears death that Frank Seiberling patented the vulcanized rubber tire and founded the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in memory of Charles Goodyear. Continue reading →

Modern bottling plants are designed to consume far less water than lets say a decade ago. SOLIDEA Group have come up with a new idea, using SOLIDEA’s own AirWell+ and providing pure condensed water from the atmosphere. “We have considered Schiphol Airport roof in Amsterdam to illustrate how Cola Air might work” says SOLIDEA’s Steve Walker “The air above Schiphol is just perfect for the Worlds first renewable Cola” Continue reading →

The remote mining industry holds huge potential for the renewable energy and renewable water industry who fondly refer to their art as “Watergy”. SOLIDEA’s Watergy is an holistic modern economic approach to the combined energy, water and waste consumption of any installation an art that saves mine owners and operators money.

Good Watergy practice for remote mining project considers the full life cycle impact of the fuel, energy, water and waste design and both on and off the site. Watergy is a hot topic in the mining industry these days as public opinion, natural conservation and meeting tough new environmental requirements impacts project certainty even in the remotest locations.

Solid wastes cause congestion in the Municipal sewage its the end of the life cycle for some systems; but small scale gasification systems like the PowerCan® 200 lend a helping hand. Solid wastes can be extracted in line upstream and at a local level. “This significantly reduces the impact on the water treatments system at the end of the line” says SOLIDEA’s Steve Walker “A containerized system is unobtrusive taking up no more space than a few parking places, it processes the extracted solid waste or sludge”.

The PowerCan® 200 system produces a bio-waste pellets in line. The pellets are then fed into the PowerCan® 200 CHP unit to generate energy. CHP produces heat which is used for the sludge drying process. The electricity generated keeps the whole pellet production process operational 24 hours per day with most of the electrical energy produced by the CHP is sold to the local power grid as renewable energy. SOLIDEA has developed a truly sustainable value added human waste to energy [H-WtE] system with the PowerCan® 200. .

Container Deposit Legislation [CDL] is soon to be adopted throughout the European Union and it would do best building on the success of the CDL in Sweden. The aim of CDL is to improve the efficiency of recycling, reducing the impact at the landfill, it targets beverage packaging sorting, where a nominal deposit provides an economic incentive to clean it up. By taking the packaging back to the supermarket or recycling center the bearer may redeem the deposit.

Practically all consumption-ready soft drinks, alcohol and other cold beverages sold in Sweden have a deposit or “pant”. A pant is often mistakenly referred to as a tax. “A pant is not a tax because you get it back” Says SOLIDEA’s Steve Walker “and now, its not only beverages, many kinds of aseptic packaging may also now carry pants”. Continue reading →

PowerCan® 200 and similar small gasification systems are making landfill practice history across Central and South Europe even in West Africa; “landfill is no longer part of modern waste management”. Says SOLIDEA’s Steve Walker “With PowerCan® 200, the waste is recycled or made extinct at the sorting station” “MSW never goes beyond the tipping floor and at the existing landfill its the perfect solution to clean up Central Europe and West Africa”.

SOLIDEA Group are working with district planners worldwide who clearly prefer smaller sorting stations; with a PowerCan® 200 inline with the tipping floor; large scale ambitious new projects are dinosaurs they simply no longer make sense. Continue reading →

Women and Children in a colorful queue of water buckets and bowls in a Conakry suburb yesterday. The power is on between 9pm and midnight and with it comes the water. This filling station is free, water is available elsewhere in Conakry, but its not free, “Without energy there is no Water Says” SOLIDEA’s Roland Montagnon. “and the shortage of energy means there is often only a chance for water twice a day. Continue reading →

“There is nothing greener than a garbage disposal unit in modern plumbing. At SOLIDEA Group we are asking our real estate development clients not to forget them in their projects” says SOLIDEA’s Steve Walker. “The good old fashioned waste disposal unit is really making a come back in WE [Waste Etiquette] and developments which promote such innovation are cutting edge despite old hat technology”.

Foodwaste or organic waste accounts for 15-20% of all household garbage in Europe and the Middle East, garbage sorting and recycling at home increases the biological quantity and the potential for Methane. That’s really bad news because it is this content that causes Methane in the landfill site and its dirty garbage that makes the garbage sorting business the mess that is today. Continue reading →